JPMorgan Facing U.S. Money-Laundering Probe

by Christopher Freeburn | September 17, 2012 4:21 pm

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM[1]) is back under regulatory scrutiny. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has ordered the bank to review its own transactions and identify potential breaches of its anti-money laundering controls[2].

Unnamed sources told Reuters that the focus of the investigation was the bank’s procedures for analyzing large volumes of questionable transactions.

The bank must now review and increase its internal safeguards and reporting of suspicious transactions. The OCC may be just the first regulator to scrutinize anti-money laundering safeguards at the bank. The U.S. Justice Department might also become involved.

Reports of the new investigation come just months after the bank announced that a trader at its London office had amassed billions of dollars of losses in derivatives trading[3].

The government has shown a renewed interest in pursuing money-laundering activities recently, Earlier this year HSBC (NYSE:HBC[4]) was hit will $700 million in fines relating to lax controls that may have allowed drug cartels to launder funds through the bank[5].